


trying to get up that great big hill called hope

by CallMeBombshell



Series: in all these ways we come together [6]
Category: Batman (Comics), DCU (Comics)
Genre: M/M, Stakeouts, brief mention of babs, uncomfortable emotional conversations
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-09
Updated: 2019-08-09
Packaged: 2020-08-13 12:33:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,934
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20174332
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CallMeBombshell/pseuds/CallMeBombshell
Summary: “It’s fine,” Jason says, nudging his sarcasm level down to something a bit less hostile and more gently ribbing. “We patrol, we hang out. It’s not really a thing.”Itisa thing, or at least Jason’sreally hopingit’s a thing, but Dick doesn’t need to know that.“Right,” Dick says, a third time; Jason’s starting to wonder if Dick has somehow lost the ability to start sentences any other way. "That's, uh, that's good."





	trying to get up that great big hill called hope

**Author's Note:**

> i debated about whether or not to post this fic as part of this series, actually. the end of _racing hearts_ worked really well as the series end, but i also really wanted to tell this part, too. so consider this a kind of epilogue: this is what comes after the credits roll; this is the "one year later" update; this is the proof that the story doesn't fade to black after the big kiss at the end. 
> 
> and this is one last gift for you guys, all of y'all who have stuck around with me from the start, and all of y'all who joined us along the way!
> 
> thanks to megs for beta-ing this for me :D

Jason’s been crouching on the roof of a tall, ugly sandstone office building for the last hour, eyes (and domino-lense-enhanced optics) trained on the building across and down the street, when there’s a muffled thump behind him. Jason tenses, hand sliding toward the knife stuck in his boot, ready to whip around and throw it towards whoever is approaching from behind.

“Oh, it’s you.”

It’s a familiar voice, for all that Jason rarely hears it. He rolls his eyes and turns toward her, relaxing back against the low wall encircling the rooftop.

“Batgirl. What a pleasure.”

Batgirl grins, something a little sharper and meaner than Jason thinks she normally wears. Her boots scuff softly as she makes her way over, dropping comfortably to one knee a few feet away. 

“Red Hood. Fancy seeing you here.” She tips a sardonic, imaginary hat at him. “You interested in this cute little group of budding criminal entrepreneurs, too?”

Jason snorts, feeling the corner of his mouth twitch up in a smile before he can stop it. 

“Yeah, something like that. They’re working a drug shipment I’m looking to bust up,” he adds, darting a quick glance over.

To her credit, Batgirl doesn’t seem at all surprised at Jason willingly sharing information. Jason doubts she realizes how much more catty he’d be if it was Dick or the Demon Brat who’d interrupted his stakeout. But Babs seems to like her, and Jason figures if she’s in Tim’s good books, then she must be alright. Besides, he figures, if they’re both here for the same reason, sharing intel is only going to help them both.

“I’m in it for the guns,” Batgirl tells him, shrugging. “Sounds like they’ve got their opportunistic little fingers in all sorts of pies.”

The group in question, the one Jason’s been not-so-successfully spying on for the last week, is a handful of enterprising young criminals who had realized that there was a lot of money, and no small number of useful connections, to be made as third party middlemen, coordinating shipments and security for bigger names in ways that didn't link back to their employers. The case Jason's working is a drug shipment for Black Mask; he thinks the case Batgirl is working is the gun runners that Oracle has been looking into.

As far as Jason’s been able to tell, there are seven of them, five men and two women, all probably somewhere in their late twenties, all carefully nondescript in their clothing choices and hairstyles, and all of them newcomers to the crime game, at least as far as Jason’s reasonably good mental catalogue of players is concerned. Certainly they’re no one anyone’s heard of, no prior reputation, not even a rumour of them anywhere along the grapevine, although word is starting to spread quietly among the most well-established criminal circles. 

The only clues they’ve gotten are rumors about a new “service” being offered to “select clientele”: planning, negotiation, coordination, whatever logistical troubles an enterprising and morally bankrupt individual might need a helping hand with. The group's tentative base of operations is a large office space on the fifth floor of a largely-abandoned office building down near Tricorner. The space is mostly empty, only a few scuffed nuclear-age desks and a handful rickety chairs scattered across the poured-concrete floor. The walls are equally bare, unpainted drywall and exposed electrical wiring and plumbing.

The space appears to serve only as a meeting place and a spot for them to come to work, rather than any sort of actual, functional base of operations. The space is leased out to a non-descript LLC holding company in the middle of a long chain of shell companies which all check out as legitimate businesses in the end, and there’s no way of telling whether any of the other shells have anything to do with this particular operation. 

Trying to catch any of the group entering or leaving has been nearly impossible, too; the building has an underground parking garage that it shares with two of the buildings next to it. Once they leave the office, all the two men would have to do is get into that garage and there’s no telling which building they could be coming out of, which one of a dozen exits they might be using, whether they’d be leaving on foot or in a car, or possibly more than one car. 

Hell, Jason thinks, they might not even leave the building; there are available office spaces in all three buildings that would be big enough for several people to camp out in. If the group needs to leave in a hurry, they can just walk out of the building; there will be nothing left behind in this empty office to identify them. 

Their business seems to be done entirely on their phones, no paperwork or computers to wrangle. The phones have proven to be a source of enormous frustration for Babs. From what Jason had overheard of a lengthy rant the night before, Babs hasn’t been able to hack, trace, or eavesdrop on a single speck of activity from any of the group’s phones. The last time Jason had seen her, earlier that evening before starting his spying for the night, she’d been typing furiously, lines of code scrolling across her screen, muttering darkly about international data protection policies.

Right now, there are only two of them that Jason can see in the building, the brown-haired man who seems to spend the most time in the office space on his phone and is therefore probably their main coordinator, and the taller of the two blond men, who seems to spend most of his time slouching in chairs and against various walls doing absolutely nothing. 

Jason’s spent the last hour and a half perched on the roof of the building across the street and down the block, hoping to get a better look at their faces through the bare windows, but the pathetic puddle of light from the tiny lamp on the desk is doing more to throw the two men’s faces into shadow than illuminating anything, utterly disguising and exaggerating any features that might make them recognizable. If it was any other group, Jason would say it was probably a coincidence, but everything about these guys has been so tightly controlled and carefully untraceable that Jason’s been forced to conclude that, despite the uncovered windows, the group has still cleverly taken pains to ensure that no peeking eyes can see anything worthwhile.

“Man,” Batgirl says, leaning a bit closer to get a better sightline on the building. “You really can’t see anything in there, can you? I mean, I thought the nice, open, floor-to-ceiling windows were a pretty arrogant move, but they’ve really got the shitty visibility game down, don’t they?”

Jason shakes his head, knowing his annoyance has to be written all over his face. “It’s been like this all week,” he tells her. “They’re never here during the day, and the hallway past the main door is always dark, too. Just the one desk lamp, and the way it’s angled, they’d practically have to bend backward over the desk and shove their faces under it before we could get any sort of good look at them.”

Batgirl sighs long-sufferingly, “I really hate it when the bad guys are smart.”

Jason makes a vaguely agreeing noise and they lapse into a silence that’s just shy of actually comfortable.

In the dark office space, the first man continues to tap away at his phone, the weak blue light from the screen doing nothing to illuminate his features, while the other sprawls in his chair, tipped precariously back on two legs, arms folded behind his head; Jason thinks he might _ actually _ be napping.

Jason watches the first man tap away industriously on his tiny phone keyboard for several minutes, the rapid flicking of the man’s thumbs. If occurs to him, in a vague burst of sudden insight, that he’s never seen a single one of the group actually make a phone call, only seemingly endless typing, all of them just tap-tapping away the whole time.

Jason sits back, reaching into a pocket to pull out his phone, pulling up a new message; next to him, Batgirl shifts, peering over at him.

“What are you doing?”

Jason hums, distracted with typing for a moment. “Texting O,” he says absently.

_ phones could be harddrives? _ he sends Babs, _ no service no data, just copying files?? _

“Texting her about what?” Batgirl asks, making a jerky little motion like she’d almost leaned over into Jason’s space to read his phone screen, but stopped herself before she did it.

“Phones,” Jason says, distracted again as his phone buzzes in his hand.

_ !!!!!!! _ Babs sends, and _ Fuckers!!!!, _ and _ Low tech FUCKERS!!!!!!!!!_, and _ STEAL ME A PHONE, DAMMIT_.

_ how?? _ Jason sends back_, cant tail or trace them! _

_ You’re the crime lord, FIGURE IT OUT _ Babs responds. 

Jason can hear the amused exasperation in his head as if Babs were speaking out loud. There’s a snort of laughter next to him; Batgirl has given in to curiosity and has leaned close enough to read Babs’ latest text. Jason helpfully scrolls back up for a moment so she can read the rest before typing again.

_ yeah crime LORD_, Jason points out, _ i get to delegate that shit _

_ Delegate to who? _ Babs wonders, as if Jason doesn’t know that Babs is absolutely keeping a close enough eye on him to know that Jason has a whole network of people, most of them street kids like him, who he usually tasks with surveillance and occasional appropriation of certain items from suspect parties.

_ my army of impressionable young teenagers_, Jason types, then hesitates before quickly deleting it. Next to him, Batgirl makes a surprised sort of hum; Jason ignores her. It’s the sort of thing he would send to Tim without a second thought, but somehow he suspects that with Babs it would just end in sad looks from Babs’ pitying green eyes the next time he sees her, and Jason’s not certain he could handle that with any sort of dignity or grace.

_ my army of minions _, he sends instead.

_ You know what kind of people have minions? _ Babs shoots back, _ BAD PEOPLE, like CRIME LORDS, who do morally-dubious things like STEAL PHONES FROM OTHER BAD PEOPLE. _

_ alright FINE_, Jason relents, _ I WILL STEAL YOU A GODDAMN PHONE somehow i dont even know _

_ Thank you! :) :) :) _ Babs sends, switching from capslock rage to sunny smiley-face emojis in a heartbeat with Jason’s capitulation. Jason rolls his eyes, feeling the corners of his mouth twitching against a grin.

“Why texting?” Batgirl asks as Jason tucks his own phone away again. “I mean, we have radios.”

Jason shrugs, a little uncomfortable. “Force of habit,” he says, and shrugs away thoughts of the early days of his return, back before anyone knew he was there; before he didn’t kill Bruce, and Babs reached out one night a week later like she’d been there all along.

Batgirl hesitates, clearly noticing his discomfort, but thankfully doesn’t say anything. “So the plan is to steal one of their phones?” 

Jason shrugs. “Apparently.”

Batgirl stares at him. Jason can only see the lower half of her face under her cowl, but there’s still a distinct edge to her expression that suggests a skeptical raised eyebrow. “How?”

Jason shrugs again, leaning back on his hands. “Probably pickpocket him.”

“I figured,” Batgirl says, rolling her eyes. “I meant, like, how are you even gonna get close enough? We can’t see their faces, how are we supposed to track them if we don’t even know what they look like?”

“_We?_" Jason asks, raising an eyebrow at her. “What’s _ we?_ _I _ am going to talk to a guy about hacking some cameras for me so I can try to get a look at these guys. I don’t know what _ you’re _ going to be doing.”

“I’ve got ways of finding people, too,” Batgirl says, rolling her eyes again. There’s a smile lurking at the corners of her mouth; Jason’s gaze catches on the edge of it for a moment.

This must be the version of Batgirl that Babs knows, Jason thinks, sarcastic and wry and more companionable than Jason expected. This is the version of Stephanie Brown who is Tim’s best friend; Jason’s starting to understand what Tim sees in her.

“I’m sure you do,” Jason says; if Batgirl notices the surprising lack of sarcasm, she doesn’t mention it.

A smudge of movement catches Jason’s attention and he moves forward, hoping that something is finally happening. He’s disappointed, however: Tap-Tapper is still as stone, save for his tap-tappity thumbs; the movement came from Blondie, who has shifted forward to the very edge of his seat with his feet up on the table, slouched so his neck is bent at a truly painful-looking angle, his chin practically touching his chest. 

Next to him, Batgirl makes a frustrated noise and slumps forward against the low wall, resting her chin on top of it, looking vaguely disgusted. Jason agrees; there is a level of frustration in dealing with these guys that’s starting to feel like a personal attack.

“What is he even _ doing _ on that thing?” Batgirl mutters, sounding equal parts annoyed and incredulous as she glares across at the man. “How have his thumbs not fallen off yet?”

“Maybe it’s not even crime shit,” Jason suggests, “Maybe he’s going for a world record on Candy Crush.” 

Batgirl snorts out a laugh. “Maybe he’s working on his crime novel.”

“Noir thriller,” Jason agrees, nodding. “The next great American mystery.”

“He’d be happy to tell you about it, but you’re probably not brilliant enough to understand,” Batgirl adds, snorting out a very sarcastic laugh. 

They lapse into silence again. Jason keeps half an eye on the two men, in case one of them suddenly remembers other activities exist; the rest of his brain starts absently going over lists in his head: people he knows who can pull camera footage of the area, people who might be able to get into the building to do recon, people who know people who might’ve seen something.

After a while, Jason has to admit he’s paying more attention to the way Batgirl keeps moving around every few minutes, shifting her weight from one foot to the other, sitting forward to lean more on her elbows, braced on the low wall, or sitting back onto her heels. She’s still got her eyes trained on the office, but every now and then her head bobs side-to-side, like she’s got a song stuck in her head, absently following imaginary music.

She’s quieter than Jason would have thought. He’s never asked Tim about her, but he’s heard enough mentions of her chatterbox tendencies, and certainly seem the evidence of them the few times he’s run across her. But now, on patrol, on duty, she’s quiet, seemingly content to sit on the roof without making a sound.

Jason glances back at the two in the office; they haven’t moved an inch since Jason first saw them walk in more than an hour ago. Even if they did finally do something, Jason’s all but given up on trying to get any good looks at them tonight. 

Honestly, Jason could probably leave now and not miss anything at all, but Batgirl is still sitting there, patiently watching and waiting, just in case something _ does _ happen. Somehow the idea of leaving her here by herself, undoubtedly for several more hours of mind-numbing boredom, strikes Jason as just...well, unfair. After all, they might not be working the same case, but they’re after the same intel, and Jason can’t quite bring himself to ditch the stakeout just because it’s boring and awful while Batgirl sticks around being all dedicated and responsible and shit.

Although if he’s gonna stick around with her, he’s gonna have to get some kind of conversation going, because, again: _ boredom _.

“Can I ask you a question?"

Batgirl turns slightly to face him, blinking. “Um? Sure? I mean, I didn’t really think you were the ‘ask questions’ sort, but uh. Yeah, go ahead.”

Jason rolls his eyes. This is exactly why he tries not to talk to any of the bats not named Tim or Babs; they’re all completely impossible. “You know, I don’t _ just _ shoot people. I ask questions. Sometimes. When I want information.”

Batgirl smirks, sarcasm writ large across her face. “Ask questions first, shoot people later, huh? There’s a twist.”

Jason grits his teeth, fighting the way his eyes want to roll straight out her head, the way his stupid mouth wants to say something cutting and cruel. Instead, he just closes his eyes for a moment behind his domino, unseen. 

“You know what, forget it. Nevermind.”

“No, wait.” Batgirl raises a hand, the motion stutter-stopping awkwardly as she aborts whatever little reaching gesture she was about to make. She’s biting her lip when Jason looks over, something sheepish and maybe a little apologetic in her expression. “Sorry. Go ahead. Ask away.”

Jason watches her for a long moment, assessing, before sucking in a deep breath, letting out slowly. He looks away, staring sightlessly across the street. 

“What was it like? For you, I mean. Being Robin.”

There’s a brief silence; Jason risks a quick glance over, finding Batgirl staring at him, seeming a little stunned and a lot caught off guard. “Uh. Wow.” She blinks a few times, looking away, following Jason’s lead. “That is...not at all what I thought you were gonna ask about.”

Jason snorts softly. “What were you expecting?”

Batgirl’s shrug is a tiny smudge of movement in Jason’s periphery. “I don’t know, intel on B? Questions about Red? Bugging me about my case? I don’t know, just…”

Jason turns just enough to see her face, watch her expression beneath her cowl. “Just what?”

Batgirl shrugs again, turning back to Jason. There’s a funny sort of look on her face, not quite confused, not quite uncertain. “I just wasn’t expecting you to want to talk about...that.”

There’s irritation rising in the back of Jason’s mind, an anxious bubbling feeling in his stomach, a tightening in his throat that feels a little like panic. He shouldn’t have asked, should have just kept his damn mouth shut. 

“Fine then, we won’t talk about it!”

Batgirl turns toward him again, hand stretching out in another aborted gesture. “No!” she says quickly, then backtracks, “I mean, it’s fine? It’s fine. Just, you know. Unexpected.” She shrugs again, something a little helpless in her expression. Jason thinks he liked it better when she wasn’t looking at him; he doesn’t know what to do with the look she’s giving him, vaguely concerned and far too earnest.

“Whatever,” Jason mutters, turning away again. 

Across the street, Tap-Tapper keeps tapping away, hunched over the tiny, glowing screen; Blondie’s still folded up improbably in his chair, casually defying the laws of physics and gravity. Nothing’s changed in the last three minutes. 

Jason’s not even sure why he’s still here; clearly, this stakeout is a bust tonight, and if he’s not going to get anything useful here, then there are plenty of other things he could be doing instead. He could swing by the handful of clinics in Crime Alley, make sure they’re all doing okay, no recent trouble to deal with. He could check on the warehouses down at the docks; there’s always something nefarious happening down there, even if he does risk running into Dick and Demon Brat.

He could swing up through midtown, try to catch up with Red Robin, maybe cross his path as he heads back up to Newtown. Or he could beat him there, could test out Tim’s windows and see which ones he leaves unlocked (but never unguarded) as an easy access point. He could slip in unnoticed, be waiting there for him, maybe with a cup of coffee or Alfred’s tea freshly-made when Tim got home—

“It was hard.”

Jason startles, jerked out of his thoughts. “What?”

Batgirl sighs, and Jason turns to watch her. She’s pulled in on herself, knees drawn up and her arms wrapped around them, cape spread out like a tent around her. “Being Robin,” she clarifies. “It was hard. I wasn’t very good at it, honestly.”

Jason blinks, tilting his head as he regards her. “From what I heard, you did okay.”

Batgirls snorts, tossing her head slightly. “Right,” she says, sarcastically. “I only accidentally started a gang war that could have basically destroyed the city because I was trying to impress B. I was _ not _ okay at it.”

“Well,” Jason says, a little dumbfounded, because, really...what is he supposed to say about that? “At least you’re good at being Batgirl?” Batgirl cuts a quick glance over at him and he shrugs, uncomfortable. “I mean, O talks about you a lot, and she’s not one to suffer idiots.”

“Yeah,” Batgirl says, the corner of her mouth twitching up slightly. “O’s great, being Batgirl is great. Helps that I actually _ wanted _ to be Batgirl.”

Jason frowns. Had she not wanted to be Robin? How did she end up with the job if she hadn’t wanted to take it? “What do you mean?”

Batgirl sighs heavily again, blowing out a breath all in one long gust. “Look, I...I wanted to be Robin, but I wanted it for all the wrong reasons.” She swallows hard, looking out across the street. “I wanted to prove something to B, and more than that I wanted to prove something to T—to Red.” 

She glances back at Jason again, holding his gaze with a wry, self-deprecating sort of smile on her face. “I wanted them to see me as something more than just Spoiler, just the girl playing at being a vigilante to get back at her deadbeat criminal dad. You know?”

Jason meets her gaze steadily, for all that it’s difficult; there’s something almost resigned behind her eyes, like maybe she’d known it was hopeless, but she’s tried it all the same. It makes something in Jason want to curl into himself, something familiar and hurting tucked away inside his chest. He wants to look away, but he forces himself not to. 

“Yeah, I can get that.”

Batgirl continues, curling into herself again. “But I didn’t really want it for me, you know? Maybe that’s why it never fit me right.” She smiles at Jason, a tiny thing, somehow twisted and bittersweet. “You can’t just _ want _ to be Robin. You have to already _ be _ Robin, somewhere. And I guess I wasn’t.”

Jason laughs, but it’s a choked, ugly kind of thing. _ I’m Robin, _ he thinks, sarcastically, _ and being Robin gives me magic_.

“And you think _ I _ was?”

Batgirl turns toward him, just looking him over for a moment before nodding seriously. “Yeah, I do,” she says; she even sounds like she means it. “Maybe not the way B wanted,” she says, “maybe not the way N or Red are, or even Demon Brat. But it fit you a hell of a lot better than it ever did me, so you must have had that in you somewhere.”

Jason swallows hard, looking away. There’s an aching thing inside his chest, something small and scared and hurt, something that feels far younger than Jason thinks he ever really got to be. His throat feels tight and raw; he blinks his stinging eyes, grateful for the domino which hides them from Batgirl’s searching gaze.

“Yeah, well,” he says, hearing the way his voice sounds rougher than he’d like, and hating it. “If I ever did, it’s gone now. Probably blown to hell along with the rest of me back in Ethiopia.”

Batgirl just looks at him. “Maybe,” she says, softly, almost gently, and Jason hates that, too. “Or maybe you just need to find it again.”

Jason swallows hard, trying to force a laugh, trying for something sarcastic; it comes out too strained, though, too rough. “Your optimism is hilariously misplaced on that count, Batgirl.”

Batgirl shrugs, and still doesn’t look away. “Okay, so maybe I’m wrong,” she says. “Maybe you won’t ever be that same boy who was Robin all those years ago. Maybe he really is dead and gone. But...” 

She shrugs again, and then she smiles, something tiny and almost shy, but so terribly, achingly _ genuine_. It’s almost painful to be looked at like that, like she actually cares about him, like she cares if he’s okay, and it’s all Jason can do to not look away, not get up and run far away from this terrible conversation and these terrible feelings curling sharp and aching behind his ribs.

“I know O thinks a lot of you,” Batgirl says, so goddamned _ kind _ that it hurts. “And I know Red thinks even more. So maybe you can’t be the same person you were. But that doesn’t mean that you can’t still be someone _ good_.”

  
  
  
  


“Your ex-girlfriend is a trip,” Jason tells Tim later, sprawled across the round armchair with his head tilted back to look out the window, mostly-upside-down, phone dangling precariously from tired fingers.

“You talked to Steph?” Tim asks, tinny and surprised-sounding through the crappy phone speaker.

“We’re chasing the same people,” Jason explains. “Ended up on the same rooftop stakeout for a while, got to chatting a bit.” Granted, _ chatting _ is definitely a much nicer, blander word for...whatever that had been, but _ got into an awkward and uncomfortably emotional heart-to-heart _ just sounds even worse.

“Really?” Tim says, sounding vaguely delighted. Jason can almost feel Tim’s smile, small and warm and probably a little mischievous. “How was that?”

Jason sighs, levering himself upright again. “I don’t know,” he says, hesitating. “Okay, I guess? Weird.”

“Good weird or bad weird?” Tim asks; his tone is light, but Jason thinks he can hear a tiny note of concern.

“Just...weird,” Jason says, fighting the urge to squirm uncomfortably even though Tim can’t see him, can’t read the awkwardness in Jason’s expression. He can probably hear it in Jason’s voice, though. “I don’t know,” Jason says, before the pause can get any more stilted. “It wasn’t _ bad _ , exactly, but I don’t know if I’d call it _ good _ either.”

“Fair enough,” Tim says, conceding. “I’m mostly just impressed it didn’t turn into a fight. Steph’s kind of hot-headed sometimes.”

“Really?” Jason snarks. “I hadn’t noticed.”

“And you’re, uh...not really one of her favorite people,” Tim says, sounding apologetic; Jason can practically hear his wince.

“I bet,” Jason mutters, feeling unreasonably grumpy about it. Still, he thinks about Batgirl’s—_ Steph’s _ —expression just before Jason had made his excuses and beat a hasty retreat from the rooftop: the way she’d looked at him differently, like she was seeing something in him she hadn’t seen before, something that made the hard downward curve of her mouth soften slightly, her eyes going a little kind and a little hurt-looking, like she was hurting _ for him _.

He still doesn’t know what to do with that.

“She’ll come around eventually,” Tim says, quietly confident. “After all, I kind of like you a lot, so she’ll just have to get used to you being around.”

Jason won’t admit that some tiny part of him was maybe hoping for some sort of affirmation, some kind of confirmation that this..._ thing _ with Tim means something, that Tim isn’t going to someday drop Jason like so much trash if the rest of their dysfunctional family disapproves; that Tim wants to _ keep _ Jason, enough to stand up to his best friend about it.

“Guess she will,” Jason says, smiling more softly than he thought he knew how, even though Tim isn’t there to see it; he hopes he can hear it, anyway. 

  
  
  
  


“I hear you and Red are spending a lot of time together these days.”

Dick has always been light-footed, always walked with silent steps like a cat. Jason has always hated it, always felt like a clumsy, thundering idiot next to him, but he doesn’t think he’s ever hated it quite as much as he does now.

He doesn’t flinch at the sound of Dick’s voice suddenly behind him, muffled by the cowl, but that’s mostly because he trained himself long ago not to react to things that startled him. Jason turns, sarcastic grin firmly in place.

“Dickybird. How nice to see you.”

Dick’s perched on top of an industrial air conditioning unit, the outgoing vent blowing his cape out behind him dramatically. If it were anyone else, Jason would suspect he’d done it on purpose, trying to look imposing or intimidating; since it’s Dick, though, it’s probably a complete accident.

“O said you’ve been patrolling with him sometimes,” Dick continues, ignoring Jason’s greeting. “And spending time together out of uniform, too.”

_ Yeah, big brother_, Jason wants to say, _ I’m kind of probably dating your little brother. _ He bets Dick’s eyes would pop out of his head completely; it’d be hilarious if the thought of telling Dick wasn’t so completely terrifying.

“We’ve gone out a few times,” Jason says, deliberately vague. Dick’s eyes narrow, clearly aware that there’s something more being implied, although Jason doesn’t think he suspects it’s anything more than a vague sort of friendship, at best.

“Right,” Dick says, sounding skeptical. 

_ Here it comes..._Jason thinks, the real reason Dick’s asking about him and Tim.

“You’re not getting him involved in...your kind of business, are you?” Dick asks, sounding like he’s trying for intimidating and stern, but really ending up somewhere closer to wheedling and suspicious. It’s still enough to make Jason grit his teeth against the irritation crawling up his throat, the anger starting to burn in his chest.

“No,” Jason says, cold and hard, trying not to let his hands curl into fists. “I am not ‘getting him involved in my business’.”

Dick hunches forward slightly, peering at him from behind the cowl’s white lenses; Jason’s willing to bet that Dick’s eyes have gone all squinty. “So what _ are _ you doing?” Dick asks.

_ Trying to figure out how to get Tim to make out with me, like, all the time_, Jason’s brain says, unhelpfully and far too honestly for Jason’s liking.

“Getting to know him,” Jason’s mouth says, thankfully.

“Right,” Dick says again. At least now he’s stopped looking quite so suspicious and mostly just looks confused; still kind of squinty, though. “And uh. How’s that going?”

Jason stares. Dick stares back. There’s an embarrassed red flush rising on his cheeks under the cowl, Jason realizes with a distant sort of glee. Dick has no idea what’s going on here and he’s trying so hard (_ oh my god does he try, _ Jason thinks, absently) to be friendly and supportive. 

For a brief moment, Jason wishes Tim was there, if only because he’d love to see Tim’s reaction to Dick’s sheer earnestness. Jason suspects it would involve sarcasm and terrible blushes, and embarrassed-but-snarky Tim is one of Jason’s favorites.

“It’s fine,” Jason says, nudging his sarcasm level down to something a bit less hostile and more gently ribbing. “We patrol, we hang out. It’s not really a thing.” 

It _ is _ a thing, or at least Jason’s _ really hoping _ it’s a thing, but Dick doesn’t need to know that.

“Right,” Dick says, a third time; Jason’s starting to wonder if Dick has somehow lost the ability to start sentences any other way. “That’s, uh, that’s good,” Dick says, still looking confused, but Jason thinks there’s a hint of a smile lurking around Dick’s face. 

“Red’s kind of a loner these days,” Dick adds, sounding both regretful and wistful at the same time. “He could probably use someone else around.”

Jason nods, swallowing against the sudden lump in his throat. Tim hadn’t said it outright, but Jason had suspected that Tim had closed himself off from the rest of their weird little family after he was fired. He hadn’t cut ties completely, but Jason thinks Tim talks to them less than he used to, and probably not as openly. 

It’s kind of sad, because if there’s one super important thing Jason’s learned about Tim, it’s that Tim might be picky about who he allows close to him, but once he decides you’re worth it, he refuses to let go. 

He’s also loyal, the most loyal person Jason’s ever known, so dedicated to his friends and his family, the people he considers _ his _ ; Tim would drop everything for them, would go to any lengths to protect them. He must have convinced himself that it was better, _ safer _ for everyone if he went it alone: no partner, no backup, no one to bounce ideas off of or watch his back.

_ How much is this hurting you, Tim? _ Jason thinks, turning to stare out across the city, gaze turned northward, toward Newtown. _ How lonely have you been all this time? _

“Promise—” Dick cuts himself off, jerking Jason’s thoughts back to the present moment. He looks back over to find Dick standing closer, chewing anxiously on his lower lip. It’s upsetting to see under any circumstances: bright, cheery Dick reduced to worry and hand-wringing; with the cowl and the cape, it’s especially jarring.

“Promise me you’ll watch out for him,” Dick says softly, holding Jason’s gaze with a kind of quiet determination. “He needs someone to be there for him when he needs it, and he won’t let me do it anymore.”

Jason stares. He’s a little stunned, he thinks, or he will be once he figures out how to describe how he’s feeling with words other than _ What? _

“I tried to kill him once,” Jason says, mouth spitting out words without his brain’s permission.

“I know,” Dick says. The anger Jason half-expected to see isn’t there; instead, Dick just looks impossibly sad. 

“They why in _ fuck _ would you trust me to watch out for him?” Jason asks, bewildered and vaguely angry for no reason he can figure out.

“Because,” Dick says, shrugging, infuriatingly calm, “you patrol with him now. And you haven’t tried to kill him since then.”

Jason stares, knowing his eyes must be wide as Alfred’s good dinner plates. “That’s all it takes? Really?” His voice breaks a little; he hopes Dick doesn’t notice.

“I don’t know,” Dick admits, sighing heavily; it looks like it pains him a little to say it. “I don’t really know what to think of you anymore,” he says, and the regret in his voice makes something in Jason’s chest twist painfully. 

“I just know that T—that Red seems to trust you,” Dick goes on, his mouth twisting into a funny, pained-looking smile. “And I guess…” He shrugs again, a helpless sort of gesture. “I guess I just never really wanted to believe you were so completely gone, after all.”

Jason blinks, looking away; it hurts to look at Dick right now. “I...have no idea what to say to that,” Jason says honestly. His chest feels hollowed-out and too-full at the same time, too many things writhing inside his head to make sense of any of them right now.

Dick just watches him, eyes unreadable behind the cowl’s white lenses, but the slumped line of his shoulders is so terribly earnest and unguarded that it makes Jason’s heart want to break, just a little. 

It makes him think of Dick when Jason was a kid, older and impossibly cool in Jason’s eyes; the younger version of Dick who had been angry at Bruce for replacing him, but who had taught Jason how to do front flips and slide down the bannister of the manor’s grand staircase without falling. 

It makes him think of the version of Dick who nudged Alfred into convincing Bruce to buy an old junker of a car so that Dick could take Jason out to an empty parking lot and teach him to drive; the same version of Dick who insisted on getting an automatic because Jason could take the tires off any car he laid his eyes on but couldn’t work a clutch to save his life.

It reminds him of the truest version of Dick Grayson that Jason has ever known, the one who hides beneath every single costume Dick has ever worn, behind every single role he’s ever played: the version that has always been, and only ever wanted to be the best big brother to his ridiculous adopted family that he could possibly be.

“Don’t worry, Dickybird,” Jason says, swallowing hard and taking a hesitant step forward, enough to bring him into Dick’s space, hoping his voice doesn’t sound as wavering as it feels in his throat. “I’ll look out for him. I promise.”

Dick finally smiles, something smaller than his usual blinding grin, but it looks so relieved, if still a bit wobbly, and Jason finds himself trying to smile thinly back at him.

“Thank you, Jason,” Dick says, reaching out and brushing his hand across Jason’s shoulder, a hesitant, skittering kind of gesture, but one that still settles something anxious and worrying inside Jason’s chest. 

“Of course,” Jason says, clenching his fists and willing himself not to move away from the touch. 

“I mean...it’s Tim,” he says, helplessly, and knows he’s probably giving away far too much with his stupid cracking voice and his stupid face with his stupid mouth that never learned how to say Tim’s name without saying everything else, too. He should probably be worried about that, but at this moment he can’t bring himself to care.

“I’ll look out for him,” he says again, stronger.

“Yeah,” Dick says, grinning wider now, and impossibly fond like Jason thought he’d never see again. “I don’t think I need to worry about that anymore.  
  
  


_ how’s patrol? _ Tim texts him, an hour later, while Jason’s hopping rooftops in Coventry, starting to wrap things up for the night. 

It’s a rare night off for Tim, holed up in his brownstone and working on a final paper for one of his college classes due the next day. It’s a history class, Jason thinks, given the random texts he’s been getting all day, Tim yelling about people with old-fashioned names who Jason doesn’t know anything about.

_ boring_, Jason sends back, pausing for a moment to vault over a balcony railing and onto the fire escape beside it. _ ran into D_.

_ yeah? _ Tim says; Jason can’t tell if the faint air of trepidation is from being able to guess at how Tim’s feeling, or if it’s all Jason.

_ he asked about you_, Jason says, hedging and evading slightly, unsure if this is something they can talk about yet. 

_ about you and me_, he types after a moment; his thumb hovers over the send button for a long moment, weighing his own courage against his terrible, irrational fear of scaring Tim off, before he finally grits his teeth and hits the button.

Tim is silent for a full minute, then two, long enough that Jason starts to feel more than a little anxious, nerves making him bounce his knee up and down like a hyperactive child after too much caffeine. After the first minute the anxious restlessness gets to be too much, and he launches off the fire escape, catching himself on a ledge on the next building over and scaling the decorative brickwork up the side of the building. Finally his phone chimes and he makes himself stop, crouching on top of a truly ugly gargoyle.

_ what did you say? _ Tim asks. 

Not for the first time, Jason despairs of texting as a mode of communication; he has no way of reading Tim like this, doesn’t know if he’s worried or unconcerned, if he’s annoyed or amused. It makes Jason nervous, uncertain of how to react.

_ told him we went out a few times_, Jason finally settles on saying; it feels safe enough, unpresumptuous, in case Tim doesn’t want people to know that they’re...whatever they are. It’s also exactly what he told Dick, so Jason doesn’t feel quite as cowardly about not saying something more definitive.

_ okay, _ Tim responds. Jason waits for a minute, just in case Tim has something more to say, but nothing else comes. 

“What the fuck,” Jason says out loud, blinking down at his phone. The four little pixelated letters stare up at him, utterly unhelpful and utterly infuriating.

_ okay?? _ he sends back after a minute.

_ yeah :) _ Tim responds a moment later, and Jason throws his hands in the air in exasperation, nearly throwing his phone off the building in the process. He’s trying to compose himself enough to respond in such a way that Tim will understand how very much Jason’s fragile heart and delicate blood pressure do not appreciate these insensible one-word answers and vague smiley faces, when his phone chimes again.

_ come over? _ Tim sends, _ when you’re done with patrol :) _

“Fuck you and your smiley faces,” Jason mutters, but he can feel himself smiling anyway. 

_ sure_, he sends, and tucks his phone away again, rolling off the ugly gargoyle and landing neatly on his feet.

The city’s quiet tonight, all the babes asleep and sound in their beds. There’s nothing he needs to do right now, no heads he needs to crack, no one he needs to save. No one will care if he cuts his patrol a little shorter tonight.

Jason grins and takes a running leap off the edge of the building, heading for Newtown.

  
  
  
  


Tim’s living room window is unlocked when Jason gets there, but he pauses on the fire escape for a moment, peering at Tim through the glass. He’s sitting on the floor with his back up against the couch, a large textbook open on the coffee table in front of him, tapping a pen absently against his lower lip as he frowns down at the book. 

He’s wearing his glasses, the thin, rectangular black frames he only breaks out when he’s got a lot of reading to do and doesn’t want to be stuck with his contacts in for hours. It’s still weird to Jason to think that this is something he knows; that he knows about Tim’s glasses at all, because Tim certainly hides them well. 

Jason likes the look of Tim wearing them, though; Tim in glasses is usually a more casual version of Tim, a version that only ever comes out when Tim’s at home by himself, lazy and un-self-conscious with no one around to impress, just him and his textbooks and his homework spread across the coffee table or his bed.

Or, more recently, at Jason’s place, when Tim comes over after school or after patrol and crashes in Jason’s bed with him, his strong arms wrapped around Jason’s waist in his sleep. And in the morning those damn glasses make their appearance, Tim standing barefoot and rumpled in a tshirt and plaid sleep pants in Jason’s kitchen, eyes glazed and still sleepy behind his lenses as he stares into space and waits for his coffee to brew. 

Jason’s learning to covet those mornings; the little, brief moments when Tim’s brain is still offline and Jason can catch him off-guard, sneaking up behind him to wrap his arms around Tim and press tiny kisses to the back of his neck, delighting in the way Tim always jumps, startled, before humming and leaning back into Jason, content as one of Selina’s cats in a patch of sun.

Now, though, Jason slides up the window and crawls through it, grinning when Tim looks up, a slow smile spilling across his face. He drops the pen as Jason straightens, shutting the window again behind him and locking it.

“Hey,” Tim says, easy and warm and welcoming, leaning back against the couch; he arches his back, arms stretched out to the sides, and Jason can hear the _ pop _ of his back cracking. Tim hums, satisfied, and watches Jason cross the rom towards him, tipping his head back as Jason drops onto the couch behind him.

“Hey yourself,” Jason says belatedly, unable to keep his grin from turning soft and sweet and probably ten kinds of dopey as he looks down at Tim. His hand finds itself in Tim’s hair of its own accord, and Jason has to smile wider when Tim presses himself into it, eyes slipping closed.

“How’s studying?” Jason asks, curling into the corner of the couch more so Tim can drag himself up off the floor and drape himself along Jason’s side and into his lap. His hand returns to Tim’s hair only a moment later, the other curving around Tim’s hips, the tips of his fingers slipping beneath the hem of Tim’s worn tshirt.

Tim’s nose wrinkles adorably, but his eyes stay closed, head still tipped back and resting in the cup of Jason’s palm. “Ugh.”

“That good, huh?”

Tim waves a hand in a vaguely banishing gesture towards his textbook. “My brain is mush,” he declares, with the solemn air of a doctor giving tragic news to a patient. “How was Dick?”

Jason takes a deep breath, letting it out slowly, thinking. “It was—” _ Awkward., uncomfortable, heartbreaking. Cathartic. _ “Good,” he says. “I think. He told me to look out for you,” he adds, looking down to catch Tim’s reaction.

Tim’s eyes open slowly, meeting Jason’s gaze. For a moment he just looks at Jason, blue eyes intent but not sharp, like he’s drinking Jason in.

“Okay,” he says, finally, his mouth curving into a smile, small and sweet and possibly the most beautiful thing Jason’s ever seen.

“Okay?” Jason says, feeling himself smiling back down at Tim.

Tim smiles wider, sitting up and twisting around until he can settle his arms across Jason’s thighs, leaning up into his space. 

“Yeah,” he says, breath fanning across Jason’s lower lip. “That’s what we’re doing, right? That’s what you do for people you—people you care about. You look after each other.”

And Jason feels his breath catch in his chest, because that pause...that _ pause _. Because he knows Tim didn’t actually say anything, but he thinks that both of them know the word that belonged there in that little space, just like he knows that neither one of them can say it yet; that maybe neither of them will ever be able to say them. But it doesn’t matter, Jason thinks, because they both know they’re there, anyway.

_ People you care about, _ Tim said, and knew Jason would hear what he was trying to say.

_ People you love_, Jason heard, and knew Tim meant every unspoken word of it.

“Yeah,” Jason says, smiling down at Tim. There’s a feeling in his chest like helium and kittens and sunshine, warm and bubbly and so god damned contented that Jason hardly knows what to do with it. 

So he goes for what he _ does _ know: he leans down and kisses Tim, sweet and steady and wonderful.

_ I love you_, he thinks, imagining the shape of the words on his tongue, the feel of them in his mouth, the way they would feel if he whispered them against Tim’s lips just like this; if Tim would know them by the feel of Jason’s mouth on his, would hear them in the movement of his lips.

“Think you can deal with that?” Tim asks, barely more than a whisper, pulling back only far enough to speak, his lips brushing against Jason’s with every word. 

“Yeah,” Jason says again, leaning down, “I think I can live with that.”

And right here, right now, curled on Tim’s ratty couch with Tim draped warm and heavy and happy against him, Jason think that maybe, just maybe, he’s really can.

**Author's Note:**

> AND THAT'S IT, GUYS! this is the end! or at least, the end of this particular series, though by no means, (hopefully) the end of writing these dumb idiots. it feels weird to be able to mark this series as complete, especially when it sat unfinished for so long. thank you so so so so so much to all of you have stuck around and left kudos and comments. this series has been one of my absolute favorites to write, and all your awesome words and hearing how much y'all love it too is the greatest thing <3 <3 <3
> 
> i have ideas for a companion series to this one, which would feature the rest of the batfam looking in on jason and tim from the outside, but it'll probably be a while before i start on that. in the meantime, come say hi on twitter! @moonyinthesky
> 
> Jason once again associating people with song lyrics. this time it's [what's up](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6NXnxTNIWkc) by 4 non blondes, which incidentally has the same kind of vibe and energy and tone that i was trying to capture through this whole series, but especially with this fic (also if you haven't seen [the scene from sense8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1XiMVMzH8A) with this song, it's super awesome and you should check it out)

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [(podfic) trying to get up that great big hill called hope](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23973118) by [yeswayappianway](https://archiveofourown.org/users/yeswayappianway/pseuds/yeswayappianway)


End file.
